We must respond to the health crisis of adverse childhood experiences [Bangor Daily News]

Maine has the nation’s highest rate of anxiety and the third highest rate of depression among children ages 3-7. It is above the national rate for behavior problems and children diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Attention Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD). The average number of suicides per year by youth under age 20 is well above the national average and has risen by 50 percent in just five years.

It’s time to ask if these frightening statistics from the Maine Children’s Alliance’s Maine KIDS COUNT 2019 Data Book are connected to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

The experiences include emotional abuse, witnessing domestic violence, alcoholism, bullying and divorce. Children with two or more ACEs are more than three times as likely to consider suicide than children with zero or one, according to the data book.

ACEs create a disrupted stress response affecting the neurological, immune, hormonal and cardiovascular systems. This toxic stress determines which genes get turned on or off when dealing with stress, which can be passed on to the next generation, as discussed in “ The Deepest Well” by California’s Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris. The studies in her book emphasize that ACEs occur at similar rates across all socio-economic groups.